The Analyst
by sdbubbles
Summary: One night, he decides the free her - the analyst.


**A/N: This is something I thought up on Hogmany when there was nothing worth doing, and I was listening to some music.**

**The song is "The Analyst" by Delta Goodrem.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

_Prepare yourself to meet  
__A girl who cannot sleep  
Dividing every question  
__'Til the questions are complete  
Every twisted tongue  
__She studies everyone  
She won't leave any stone unturned  
__The night is oh so young_

There is something odd about Jac Naylor. She appears not to care, but I see the way she picks everything to the bone until it makes some kind of sense. I watch her break down every feeling until it transforms into logic. I've seen her with black rings around her eyes during the times toughest for her – I noticed this particularly after Joseph Byrne left for Penrith, and that was when I started to think that she lost sleep trying to work everything out in her own mind.

Even when I speak to her, I can almost see her critical mind dissecting my every word, right down to my tone, attempting to find my motives. She does it to everyone, but no-one cares to look close enough to notice her bad habit. Her eyes constantly asks silent questions...

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"Why won't you let me do this?"

"How much strain are you really under?"

"What are you hiding from me?"

"Why are you harsher on me than the rest?"

All valid questions she asks in one sweeping glare at me. I should have had the common decency to explain my strictness with her. Truth be told, I see more in her than I do in the rest of them. I see determination I see in no-one else. Yes, all the consultants in my hospital are intelligent and skilled, but few are even close to equal in their drive and ambition to do the best work possible and be as successful as humanly possible.

Every time I struggle for words – which admittedly isn't very often – she immediately flicks that switch in her mind, and begins searching for a root cause. She doesn't just accept someone's actions without a reason and a meaning, because she knows better than anyone that there is no such thing as an act, benign or malicious, that has no motive.

She doesn't let anything slip through the radar. If it's there, she'll see it. Even if she holds her tongue, she still sees it. She's always thinking, forwards or backwards, and it can't be good for her.

_Oh, oh, she's travelling back in time_  
_Questioning every line that someone said_  
_Oh, oh, she's trying to understand_

I've even seen her lost in memories I'd rather not wonder about; I've seen her record. I've seen she's been through more than even she deserves. She's been attacked, and abandoned, and betrayed, and my guess is that she's closed herself up while she tries to discover why these things happened to her. She's not the most pleasant person, but I do understand why she is the way she is.

As a result, she takes nothing at face value for fear that someone is out to get her. She mistreats as a shield. She's trying to work out the people around her because she doesn't understand how they can be so human when she doesn't even feel like a living being half the time. I must be the only one here who has looked closely enough to see the sometimes dead look in her eyes.

I've watched her with several colleagues; she never understood Sahira's compassion. She never understood Greg's misguided attempts at having a life. She doesn't understand how Elliot can be so happy when he's lost so much. Or even how I can be so darkly secluded and yet so fiercely protective of all I've built and salvaged here.

_Free her mind  
__She's always the analyst  
Silent space  
__The culprit, the catalyst  
Trying to make sense of her life  
Digging around in the dirt  
__She's a slave to the work  
She's always the analyst_

These are the reasons I stand before her, as she waits for me to actually speak. I've never really known who to approach it, but someone needs to; her outlook on life is far from healthy. She trusts no-one but herself, and I often wonder if she even goes so far to rely on her own judgement. Professionally, she definitely trusts herself. She just doesn't trust herself not to break her own heart.

As usual, at eight o'clock at night, I have found her all alone, staring blankly at a computer screen. Whatever is on that monitor holds no interest for her. There's too much else to think about. Too much else to figure out and decrypt, because to her nothing is what others claim to be.

Around her are numerous books all pertaining in some way to the case she's working on; it's a rather tricky one, even for the vast array of talents she possesses. Even her mind cannot handle the strain she puts it under, which is why she looks dead on her feet. She pushes herself too far sometimes, and I see it take it's toll.

Professionally and personally, she scrutinises everything for some scrap of logic. She doesn't understand that sometimes people really do act out of nothing more or less than sheer stupidity. That sometimes flawed judgement is what it appears and not a guise for malicious intent.

It doesn't matter how hard I or anyone else try to convince her she's wrong, that we're not trying to bring her to harm of any kind. She'll always relay it back to us all trying to deceive her. She doesn't believe anything we say, and if she does, it's never willingly. She constantly examines my motives, even until she saw why I allowed Sahira her Trauma Unit. If she managed to work that out, it makes me wonder who else she has pegged.

_Can you be sure we haven't met?  
__See the eyes, they don't forget  
They wander through the passageways  
__That tease a restless mind  
Can't afford to slip  
__The picture's gotta fit  
Her world's a photograph  
__That gets dissected bit by bit_

"I feel like we've perhaps met in another life," I finally speak, and she allows her surprise to seep onto her face. She seems shocked I would even go down the route of a personal discussion, so I expand on that original statement. "I can understand you better than I ever thought I would."

"What is there to understand?" she challenges me, and I practically watch her crawl back into her protective shell.

"Your inability to take things as you see them," I explain to her, taking the seat opposite her. "Your constant relentlessness to find an answer," I add, lifting one of the many books scattered around her.

"It has to be something," she reasons. "Everything has a cause and a consequence. I just have to find it."

"And when someone does something less than intelligent, does that mean they have another motive?" I demand. "When something appears to be a mistake, is there always something else behind it? Can it never just be a mistake, an error in judgement?"

"Looks are deceptive," she retorts, finally looking away from the screen and meeting my eyes. "What is this about?" she asks bluntly, demanding an explanation for my curious appearance in her office at this time of the night. By rights, we should both be at home. She sees more of me than I care to admit, or even acknowledge.

In a way, it's like she can't live with not knowing, because not knowing is synonymous with being unprepared and unprotected. To her, I think, everything has to have a reason. I admit I am sceptical, but I also accept that sometimes things that happen have no basis, and have no reason.

I accept that when her mother abandoned her, as I very well know she did, it was nothing to do with who she was as a child; she'd done nothing wrong. Her mother just wanted something different. But I can just imagine the torture Jac has put herself through, trying to work out why her mother left her here rather than take her daughter with her.

_Oh, oh, she's travelling back in time  
Questioning every line that someone said  
Oh, oh, she's trying to understand_

"I'm uncertain of something," I say. "I'm uncertain of why you can't trust. You study everyone until there is some reason not to trust them."

"I don't trust other people because none of them are reliable," she snaps. "They'll only go and let me down when it counts. If you rely on yourself, you know you'll never do anything but the best for yourself."

"And when that blows up in your face, and you make the wrong decision for yourself. What then?" I ask her, and I can see she isn't taking kindly to me challenging her mindset. "What about if you do what you honestly believe is the best thing for yourself, but in reality, it does you more harm than someone else would have done to you?"

"I don't trust things I don't understand," she replies, and I fully accept that. Everyone is bound to be suspicious of things unknown to them, but she takes it to entirely another level.

"Well, then, you won't get very far."

Free her mind

_She's always the analyst  
Silent space  
__The culprit, the catalyst  
Trying to make sense of her life  
Digging around in the dirt  
__She's a slave to the work  
She's always the analyst  
__She's always the analyst_

"In my mind," she begins to open up. "Every single person has that potential to harm me. And when I start to let someone in, it clouds my thinking. When I'm alone, everything is easier to understand."

"Believe me," I tell her. "If you try and understand everything and everyone, it will drive you mad. Surely it is wiser to let things play themselves out rather than attempt to alter or halt them?" I see in her eyes she understands where I'm coming from. She knows exactly the habit I'm referring to. "And as for your apparent dependence on your work, you do know the saying of all work and no play?"

"Yeah, well, you'd do well to remember that one too," she smirks, and I cannot deny that I am as guilty as her for my tendency to spend too much time working. She knows me better than she'll admit; she's seen my habits but never says anything about them, though probably because it would be hypocritical of her to comment.

"I often wonder how far you'd be willing to think about things." She gives me a curious look, and I know at that moment that she's thought about me the same as I have wondered about who she is.

"What does that mean?" she demands of me, and I struggle to put my curiosity into words for her. She is immediately cautious and defensive, though, so I find a crude way to put it.

"How far you'd push it," I try to explain. "I often wonder how far you are willing to force yourself to find the reasons and the answers. How far you'll examine people and their words and actions. Don't you ever allow your mind to rest?"

_Reliving the mistake she's made  
__Not a moment for the curious girl_

"Who needs rest?" she replies dryly.

"You do," I answer quickly. "Don't you ever become tired of trying to get to the bottom of everything?" She never lets herself just be; there is always something going on in that head of hers. Much like myself, in some respects, but I do occasionally allow myself a respite. Unlike Jac, who keeps her mind ticking over constantly.

I don't know if it's nothing more than curiosity or a way of protecting herself, though I have a suspicion it is the latter option. She informs me, "Getting to the bottom of the things people is the way I make sense of my own life. Going over my own mistakes helps me to refrain from making them again."

It's a rare moment of candidness from the woman who never tells the truth of her heart and mind. "Would you like to follow me?" I ask her, an idea coming into my head. She raises an eyebrow in rebellion, but my stare is superior. She gives in and gets to her feet, waiting for me to follow suit.

_Free her mind  
__She's always the analyst  
Silent space  
__The culprit, the catalyst  
Trying to make sense of this life  
Digging around  
__Breaking it down  
Neurotic thoughts  
Burning the ground  
Every sight, every sound  
She's always the analyst_

As she follows me, I realise it's time to set her free. We enter my office, and I gesture for her to sit at the sofa while I find pen and notepad. I make her a list of the things I know she over-thinks when she is left on her own. All the things I know about her that she doesn't realise I've discovered.

_Paula Burrows  
__Jasmine Burrows  
__Joseph Byrne  
__Harry Byrne  
__Faye Morton  
__Jonny Maconie  
__Alan Clooney_

There are many other things, but these I know are the major things always on her mind.. "These people, and the things they've done, and the things you've done to them," I begin. "Stop constantly reliving it and scrutinising everything they've said and done."

She meets my eyes once more and I know she's accepted that she has to stop thinking about it all. She knows I'm right, and I suspect I'm not the first to have to tell her, though I sincerely hope I am the last. I see a faint gratefulness in her blue eyes, and allow myself to place a hand on her arm.

"Why did you make me sit down and listen?" she asks, very quietly, a contrast to her usual loud, coarse brashness.

"Because I feel you've spent too long in the position you've played most of your life," I tell her honestly.

"And what position is that?"

"The analyst."

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


End file.
